


Picture Book

by AnneMcSommers



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Manipulative Relationship, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28969419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneMcSommers/pseuds/AnneMcSommers
Summary: Reginald Hargreeves was a man with a plan, only he wasn't a man, and so his plan went so very wrong.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Picture Book

Reginald Hargreeves did not want to come to this world. He wanted to stay where he was, and die along side the love of his life. She however, had only last wish, and that was that he live. And so he did, for her, only for her. He did not take much with him on the trip, her violin, a few minor trinkets, and a small amount of clothing.

When he arrived he found the world to be far more backward than he had intended. It was dirty, but bustling with life where his world had long been dead. It was a young world, and that was what he was looking for, something with a little staying power. 

Reginald was a man of practical means, and before crossing the ocean on what the locals referred to as a “ship”, he managed to acquire quite a bit of the local currency. It was providence that he found a factory for sale within mere steps of the end of his journey. It took a dozen years, but the factory nearly ran its self, leaving Reginald free to do his experiments, and calculations, unquestioned in the back room.

They must be wrong, the calculations that is, but no matter how many times he performed them he found the same thing. This world, which should have had hundreds, if not thousands of years remaining, was ending in less than century. It was impossible. It took a year before he realized that it was not in fact a mistake in calculation, it was something else, interference by an outside source. 

Reginald considered moving along at that point, but, well, he had grown accustomed to this world, and it would be another decade of planning, and twice as much, maybe even more before he was able to go even if he wanted too. 

Surely it would be easier to fix this world. After all, he himself knew the released would be arriving here, he would simply have to accelerate the process, collect them, and then use them to stop of the end of the world.

And so he did, and on the 1st of October 1989 they arrived. Reginald had planned for their coming, acquired several smaller properties that would serve as the headquarters of his new academy. Converting it to a suitable training environment had taken time and money, but it was ready. 

There was however a small hitch in his plans, when he had accelerated the arrival, he had modified the nature of it. Rather than arriving one at a time, over years, they all arrived at the same time. All 43 born as children on the same day, at the same time.

It created quite a logistical issue, as he had planned to only have to deal with a handful of infants at a time, and he did have to locate them all. As it was, acquiring the infants was harder than he had anticipated. Not all of them had survived the birthing process, even more had been cast away, and died abandoned.

Some were hidden, quickly sent away in secretive adoptions to “protect” the reputation and life of the mother. Others were desperately wanted, born to those who could not bear children, to those who had stable families, and incomes and welcomed the “sudden” blessings. For these no amount of money was incentive enough, and while Reginald had considered kidnapping, he felt that in the long term this would undermine his authority when he presented the children later. 

He was able to get 7 of them, he would wait a few years, and once the children’s gifts revealed themselves he felt that there might be a rather sudden change of heart. 

While Reginald could not speculate how exactly these abilities would reveal themselves, the addition of human DNA would change things, but hopefully not too much. 

He had the nannies, the children, and he was set. He was disgruntled to learn that despite rigorous scheduling the children were all developing at different rates. By the time they were four he had to have Number 3 remove any memory of Number 7’s abilities. He then had to chemically sedate her as well, she was far too powerful to leave unchecked. 

While Reginald made a half-hearted attempt to locate the other children over the years, once training had started to go wrong with Number 7 he let it go almost entirely. After all what was the earth expression “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. Better to focus on the 6 remaining children, get them ready to oppose the upcoming threat.

Children it seemed, were very different on this world, not just smaller, less developed than adults, but it seemed their entire brain chemistry altered at 13-16 years old. No matter how much he trained them, how much he pushed, there were limits that they couldn’t seem to overcome. 

With Number 4, he was loathe to admit that he had in fact pushed too far. In an attempt to get him to overcome his limitations and fear of his power he seemed to have only made it worse. Reginald was unable to tell if he had even succeeded in increasing Number 4’s abilities, as the drugs Number 4 consumed in increasing quantities could be used to either mute his powers, or simply quell the growing mental instability. 

While Number 5 disappeared of his own violation, Reginald suspected he would return in time, and after all his powers would be expanded past their current limitations and so while Number 5 would be missing training he would accomplish something far more valuable.

Then Number 6 died, and it was as if the academy fell apart about him. Number 3 fled to Hollywood, at least she was still exercising her powers regularly. 

Number 2 went to the police academy, not ideal, but he didn’t work out for long, and he was back to using his ability as he would have in the academy. 

Number 1 was disappointing, his accident requiring the use of the serum, dampening his powers, no matter, at least he was loyal. 

Reginald attempted to bring them all back for training, to prepare for the end of the world. None of them came, none of them responded, and he began to realize bringing them together to stop the end of the world would take something greater.

He began to run the calculations, and each time what he came up with is that he was doomed to fail. And so he began to plan, an event so momentous, that it would bring them all back together, maybe even the missing Number 5. 

His death. Well they would believe he was dead; it would force Number 4 to return for the money, and then to sober up to attempt to contact him which if he was correct about the breadth of 4’s abilities, would also bring 6 back into play. Number 1 would surely return for a funeral, 2 to verify his death, and 3 for appearances sake. Number 7 was inconsequential, but he guessed she would also come. 

He would make his death a murder, one they would have to work together to solve, a week before the world ended and then the day before he would reveal the truth of it, and what he had brought them together to avert. The Umbrella Academy re-united. It would be glorious. 

He planned each step meticulously, finding the monocle missing, a search of the house, Grace in question, programming altered. It was brilliant. 

Pogo insisted on back up measures, a video of the whole affair showing Grace’s presence, he didn’t now why it would be required, obviously it would be evident that Grace had done it. 

As he lay in his bed, posing with the “poison” tea he tried to act natural, as if Grace delivering him tea in bed was a common affair rather than the aberration that it was. 

He started to feign the poison affecting him, when he felt a real pain go through him suddenly. He gasped, mind racing, Grace wouldn’t help him, he had disabled that program. His dying thought, was that at least his death had saved a world.

Pogo ended the recording and headed to meet Sir Reginald in the bedroom. The coroner had already been paid to announce the death, and would arrive with an urn full of ashes in approximately 20 minutes, planning on faking the cremation log. 

When Pogo entered the room, he frowned, “Sir the recording has ended.” Sir Reginald did not move. Pogo reached out and touched his wrist, and found no pulse. Oh, no, he thought, something has gone terribly wrong.

And it had, and would continue to do so. When Reginald had explained the plan to Grace, he had done so before her coding was altered. He had planned to switch the contents of the sugar jar with poison. Grace was supposed to give him he “poison” when in fact it was still sugar and make the switch after, disposing of the sugar dish and the poison in the garbage which she was not to empty for one week. 

Unfortunately this command was muddy at best and with her programming altered the nuance of “poison” was lost on her, and she did as asked, “served him poison in the sugar dish, then switched it with the sugar and thrown them both out”.

The trouble did not end there, Sire Reginald did not after all understand humans nearly as much as he believed that he did. He did not realize that Diego caring for Grace, whom he had called Mom, would cause him to destroy the monocle. 

He also did not realize that rather than come together to interrogate Grace, they would simply vote on whether or not to turn her off, never discovering the nature of the modification to her programming.

He did not realize that Number 4 would steal rather than wait for his inheritance, and therefore not sober up to speak with him, which was especially necessary as he was actually dead, and that Number 6 was not available.

That hiding the information about Number 7 in a locked box in a locked drawer did not extend the idea “Do not read, confidential”, but that the mother of pearl inlay was valuable and that the box small enough to walk away with. 

He didn’t expect 1 to react so poorly to his secrets, and Number 5 to go off alone, as he would be an old man with his own agenda.

That Pogo would be forced to reveal the truth and lose whatever respect he had from the children. Most of all he did not realize that it was his own mistreatment of Number 7, his isolation of her from the group that would cause the end of the world he fought to hard to save. 

It was all as alien to him, as he was too this world.

**Author's Note:**

> This was for my sympathetic villain square. While I am not sure how sympathetic it made him, the idea was to make it understandable why he did what he did, in the "Everyone is the hero of their own story" kind of way.


End file.
